


Better

by wafflelate



Series: Mist POVs [2]
Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Gen, Mist Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23278447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate
Summary: Mei and Zabuza in the Mizukage's office for the first time.
Relationships: Momochi Zabuza & Terumi Mei
Series: Mist POVs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1417165
Comments: 8
Kudos: 229
Collections: Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection, Worldbuilding Exchange 2020





	Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RinRynRen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RinRynRen/gifts).



Terumi Mei holds her head high as she walks up the beach towards the heart of Kiri, where a siren is wailing and people are dying. _Her_ people, both sides of the conflict, because Terumi Mei is wearing the hat. It shades her eyes from the sun. Terumi Mei is the Godaime Mizukage, Yagura's corpse is sinking into the sea, and she has a village to fix. The first step is probably going to be mopping the blood off the streets, but such things can't be avoided.The price of progress was always going to be blood. 

Behind her, Momochi Zabuza has fallen into step. She'd been sure he'd challenge her for the hat once the fight with Yagura was done, but instead he'd done everything short of taking a knee and swearing himself to her. It will lend legitimacy to her claim to have one of the Swordsmen at her back, and the more believable Mei's claim looks the less people she'll have to kill. 

They step off the black sand and Zabuza's student joins them almost immediately. He falls behind Mei the way Zabuza has, walking just far enough back to not be a threat. They're literally watching her back and Zabuza has _already_ turned down the chance to pounce on Mei's post-battle weakness. 

She can trust them to guard her back and that's almost unsettling. 

"Ao and I secured the Mizukage's office for you," Haku adds, a casual sentence tacked on to the end of his report about his and Ao's primary mission during the rebellion, which was to secure the administrative building, the archives, the armory, and the treasury. 

It had mostly been an effort to confuse and delay any effort to organize a counteroffensive to the coup, but it had had the added benefit of preserving whatever there is to preserve. Mei had not, however, given any orders about the Mizukage's office. Its function has always been purely symbolic, making it irrelevant to the question of physically gaining control over the village. 

But symbols have their place now that Mei is actually under the hat. Haku and Ao must have simply had faith. 

Parts of Kiri are still smouldering. In the distance, swords meet swords and sunlight flashes off of water jutsu, but it's dying down. It's not the full blown chaos of battle that it was earlier, when Mei and Zabuza were driving Yagura towards the ocean so they wouldn't potentially release the Sanbi in the middle of the village. It's been long enough that the lava Mei had spit in the village square has cooled to rock. It will have destroyed the traditional sea glass mosaic underneath. New sea glass will have to be laid, but that's no hardship: it's been so long since the ground here was cleaned that the old glass is unrecognizable. 

Mei leads the way to the Mizukage's office. The ice sealing the administrative building melts in front of her. Logistically, it had been very helpful to have Haku participate in the coup. From a PR prospective, it will be even better to keep him close in order to flaunt that the bloodline purges are definitely over. Assuming he can hack it in village life, of course. Assuming Zabuza doesn't hare off again. 

Yagura has a comfortable chair. Mei has barely settled into it before the first report arrives, sent from Ao as soon as he guessed where she was headed. 

Reports of casualties and fatalities slowly trickle in over the course of the evening. Haku leaves to attend to the wounded — "Shishou has given me more than enough practice," Haku claims of his medical skills. 

"Brat," Zabuza complains fondly. 

Then it's just the two of them in the room, and Zabuza looks at her so intently that for a moment Mei wonders if he'll reconsider his previous stance and try to assassinate her for the hat now. 

Instead he says, "Someone should take the kids around to the south side of the island." 

She waits, letting only a slight tilt of her head acknowledge that he spoke. She wants to know what he'll say. She wants to hear how he'll justify it. 

"They'll only get in the way of clean up," he says gruffly. 

It's a lie because he must know that they wouldn't. When they were children they never did — children in Kiri know to stay out of the way and not ask questions or make trouble, especially when there's recently been some public spout of violence or death. 

The south side of the island is where sea glass washes up. Digging there for small treasures had been a childhood pleasure Mei's never gotten to return to and that few children these days are likely to have been afforded. Zabuza has probably never personally been there, given what his childhood was like. 

Given that they've only just grabbed ahold of the village, they won't be able to spare the man power to round children up and insist — nor would they particularly want to make rounding children up the first step of their new regime — but all Kiri citizens are good at following strong suggestions. They'll be grateful to be allowed to leave their homes while bodies are collected and burned and doubly grateful that they've been able to go with their children. And when the children have come back from scouring the beach... 

Mei gives a nod. "I was thinking we'd have to redo the plaza. We'll make strong suggestions to parents in the morning." Donating sea glass will make the younger generation feel like they were a part of something. If enough artisans can be found, perhaps Mei will fund the installation of several new mosaics around the village. 

"Extravagant." 

"It's damn depressing around here," Mei reasons. The buildings are grey, the skies are grey, the sea is grey, sometimes the very _air_ is grey. It can be beautiful, sure, but it's still very severe. Anything to soften the harsh edge of Kiri's environment will be appreciated by the citizens, especially the civilians and the younger ninja who haven't make their mind up about the coup yet. 

Zabuza's eyes flick towards the nearest windows in the office. From here, it's possible to see straight to the ocean on a clear day, although those are rare and this isn't one of them. "It would be good to build something better than what we had," he says. Zabuza is probably only able to see as far as the Academy from where he's standing. 

"We will," Mei says. By both being in this room, willing and ready to do it together, they maybe already have. 


End file.
